I haven't been blogging with the same frequency. That's just how it goes.
I missed Wilma's memorial, as did Alice, because of work. She went a little ahead of her partner. A nurse by training. Howard told great stories, about everything. His son Lee is like that too. I enjoy his writings. I've seen less of Carol over the years.
What makes me an outsider relative to a tiny core or clique in this family is who ever got to hang out at one of Howard's gold mines. He held his claims consecutively, not concurrently. This was a hobby for them and involved keeping in shape around heavy machinery. If you don't think that takes athleticism, as well as mental acuity, you'd be wrong.
Howard and his brothers always amazed me with their banter, when I'd visit on Mercer Island, the globalist son of a planner and world peace activist, product of international schools, later Princeton. I must have seemed like the quintessential know nothing, which I am and was in so many ways. I've cleaned up around big machinery, used for Tokamak on Route 1 (Forrestal Campus), but that doesn't make me a machinist. Bucky had that on me.
Anyway, that whole side of the family is hugely self reliant and pioneer spirited and I've always been proud of them. Swedish heritage mixed with all kinds of stuff. I'm talking memetic more than genetics if that makes any sense.
Ed passed of cancer some years ago (his son Ricky was closer to my age -- I went to his wedding), as did their sister Evelyn, mother to Alice and Mary.
Uncle Bill, author of a history of submarine building in the Pacific Northwest (check for blog entries), plans to visit on Amtrak one of these days. He's ninety something.
My last visit with Howard was at Mary's, at Thanksgiving last year.
